January 19, 2013

I jumped out of the car almost before it stopped moving to catch up with this sign: "The Experts Agree/Gun Control Works":

"Rights Don't END Where Feelings Begin" — note the rifle-handle for the sign:

Not sure whether the Anonymous crowd is for gun rights, but the masked man's sign, not fully visible in the photo, said "The Only Criminals That Care About the Gun Laws Are the Ones in Office":

A gun-shaped staff for the the American flag along with a dramatic "Come And Take IT" flag:

These two are focusing on the mental illness problem:

This sign had 2 sides. Side 1:

Side 2:

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it" is a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but according to the Monticello website, there is no evidence that he ever said or wrote that (or the variation ""The people will not understand the importance of the Second Amendment until it is too late").

Out in front of the Hans Christian Heg statue, there were a couple of anti-gun-rights sign-holders. "Keep Your Guns AWAY From Our Children":

Actually, we just went out to Thunder Mountain and shot trap this morning, two strings of 25. Last time out I got a Remington 1100, a fine weapon, and did lousy. Today I used a Browning BT-99 single-barreled shotgun, which they don't make anymore and should, and a Browning Citori O/U double, which fit me like love. Shot 10 the first round and 14 the second. Also much easier on my shoulder.

One should never blame the tools but jeezum crow, it makes a difference! Now 24/50 isn't great but I'm not a shotgunner, I mostly have shot rifle, and the skills are remarkably non-transferable. It was great for me. Came home with a silly grin smelling of powder. A bad day at the range is better than a good day at the office.

I wonder how many hoplophobes (gun-fearers) would change their minds if only they tried it. I will admit I kept an eye on John awhile, who was next to me on the line and who was a little loose on Rule 3 and 4 once or twice, but he soon got his head in the game and anyway it was unloaded (oops, Rule 1).

Why should it be made so difficult to enjoy these wholesome, rewarding activities?

Mainly current and retired members of the armed forces who, of course, take an oath to "protect and defend" the constitution against all enemies "foreign and domestic." The gist of the movement is that they will not obey what they believe to be unconstitutional orders as members of the active duty armed forces, gGuard or Reserves or as law-enforcement officers should they be asked to either help disarm their fellow citizens or fire upon them if ordered to do so.

Yes, it was...though I suppose you mean the demonstration? Anyway, beautiful day for shooting. Dressed for brutal cold, hardly felt it. Could maybe have done without the (deerskin lined with cashmere) gloves. Never fired a weapon wearing gloves before. Interesting. Prefer bare hands. It would be nice to have enough money to have a bit of property and ne able to go shooting every day. Hell, shooting every day with or without the property would be sweet.

I.e., they see their sworn oath to constitutional principles superceeding any political order they deem unconstitutional.

This viewpoint raises several Constitutional questions about which history and political theory provide a mixed-bag. When Harry Truman fired MacArthur for insobordination it was because MacArthur had publically stated that he, as well as Truman had taken an oath to defend the Constitution and he could interpret as well as couyld Truman. At the time most Political Scientists, jurists, the media, etc. believed Truman to be in the right--that members of the armed services best obeyed/upheld/defended the Constitution by obeying the orders of their civilian elected CinC--otherwise there would be as many interpretations of what constituted valid, "constitutional orders" as there were members of the armed forces. And there the matter stood for many years as generally accepted "good law" (so to speak) until Iran Contra and the appearence of one LtCol Oliver North, USMC.

When questioned in Congressional hearings as to why he, North, took the actions he did, North replied that he was either a) following the direct orders of the President, b) the orders of his immediate superiors in the chain-of-command, or c) when out of communications (remember this was in the days before sattalite cell-phones) he acted with what he thought were the general views of his CinC. WELL..... th lefttists in academia and the press went Able Sugar. Take orders from a mere mane? A lone politician? Did he not have a "higher duty" to protect the Constitution, they argued? "Flip!" Now the shoe was on the other Constitutional foot--at least as long as an Elephant inhabited 1600 Penn Ave. (cont'd)

A common argument is that the 2nd Amendment only guarantees the States the authority to organize a militia. I have extracted the “2nd Amendment” language from each of the State’s constitutions, and compiled them here: http://tinyurl.com/akuocvk .

Go count the number of times that “individual citizen” and “self-defense” (or words to that effect) appear in those constitutions. I would think that at least those written closer to the founding of our country would reflect the thinking of the writers of the U.S. constitution.

Then came along one William Jefferson Clinton, he of the war protestor who dodged/"avoided"--take your pick--the draft and was on written record as "loathing" the military. Would senior officers obey him, many questioned? Did he have any "moralauthority" over the armed forces in light of his background? NONSENSE, said the left. He was the duly elected CinC and they were duty-bound to obey no matter what their moral misgivings or their interpretation of the Constitution. "FLOP!" The Constitutional shoe had returned to the original foot now that a Donkey was once again in the WH.And their that interpretation of the duties of the "oath-keepers" stood until--wait for it--one Geo W. Bush ascended to office. Now, once again, questions were raised about the Constitutionality/legality of his orders and whether they should be obeyed, etc. (Anyone see a pattern here?) LOTS of gored oxen lying around..

There is also the question of our Governments action in WWII vis a vie appeals to Hitler's Generals. To refresh, Hitler had required that the German Officer Corps take a blood oath of loyalty to he, Hitler, personally. When word reached Allied intelligence that German officers were contemplating a coup but were troubled by the fact that that they would be breaking a sworn oath, American leaders counciled that they had a HIGHER duty to Germany itself, and so should disobey orders and/or break their officer's oath. Hello? Is this not just the OPPOSITE of the current view held by our government? But that's exactly the view of the Oath-keepers: that they have a "higher duty" to the Constitution than merely obeying orders that they view are in conflict with it--the EXACT SAME reasoning FDR urged on German officers to defy Hitler. Which view of a soldier's duty is right? 'Tis a puzzlement..

Years ago one of my best friends got into Szasz, so, of course, I read him too. I don't recall the arguments, only that they seemed eminently reasonable.

I am leery of the mental health profession anyway. Who gets to define what thoughts, words and behaviors are Crazy, definitions that will in addition carry legal weight? I can easily imagine some of these pros --- essentially twats with social "sciences" degrees and experiences quite different than mine --- deciding that, at different points of my life (including now), I am abnormal. How far is abnormal, or weird, from crazy?

Keeping in mind also that the founding father of the "discipline" insisted that every woman really really wants a dick and that a baby is just a poor dick-substitute, that every single man ever on earth wants to fuck his mother. These were categorical operating principles, based on. . . nothing. And for a field that fancies itself a science, there is shockingly little empirical evidence to support any of its theories or treatments, which themselves fluctuate like fads. Just compare successive versions of the DSM, the diagnostic bible of psychiatry. The insertion of insurance is only exacerbating the situation --- if your diagnosis doesn't fit a defined disorder, syndrome, etc. in the DSM, insurance won't pay. And the APA, owners of the DSM, is being most accommodating, by redefining and adding, and thus medicalizing, all kinds of stuff. In fact, the latest version (5) has provoked unprecedented internal dissension.

I don't know what to do about the small number of people who go so far as to act out their fantasies of mass murder. But I can't feel good about relying on what I can only see as a fraudulent "discipline" based on ever-shifting standards and terms and almost no empirical data, with an abysmal "cure" rate to boot.

Here's a fun fact. The new eugenicists, the biodemographers claim to have found a "conservative" gene and a "liberal" gene. They claim to have found all kinds of behavioral genes. They talk about this at Conferences at the University of Colorado on "Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences". And, under Obamacare, medicine is not just about cure of ill health in an individual, medicine is about prevention of threats to public health. See how Obama is asking the CDC to research guns as a public health threat? if you have the wrong genes you shouldn't have a gun. That's what's coming.

And here's what's wrong with this research. There is an interplay among genes and each of us has a different gene set. So there is no real way to predict the behavior of an individual from the known presence of one gene or even a set of genes. Because what is the effect of the variant genes in the individual case?

Here's a fun fact. The new eugenicists, the biodemographers claim to have found a "conservative" gene and a "liberal" gene. They claim to have found all kinds of behavioral genes. They talk about this at Conferences at the University of Colorado on "Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences". And, under Obamacare, medicine is not just about cure of ill health in an individual, medicine is about prevention of threats to public health. See how Obama is asking the CDC to research guns as a public health threat? if you have the wrong genes you shouldn't have a gun. That's what's coming.

And here's what's wrong with this research. There is an interplay among genes and each of us has a different gene set. So there is no real way to predict the behavior of an individual from the known presence of one gene or even a set of genes. Because what is the effect of the variant genes in the individual case?